This invention relates to loyalty and rewards systems, and more specifically, this invention relates to a loyalty and rewards system for supporting a user incentive program that is implemented using smart card technology.
A variety of user incentive programs are currently implemented in retail and other user-based industries to motivate users to make purchases or engage in promotional activities. While some of these incentive programs, such as coupon and rebate programs, have been effective in enticing users to make one time purchases, they, however, fail to establish long term user loyalty (e.g., repeat purchases from the same merchant).
Generally, manufacturers and merchants (or “providers”) issue a variety of coupons and rebates that are associated with an array of redemption methods (e.g., percentage or dollar amount savings on an item purchased, savings on subsequent purchases, etc.). In order to obtain what is often a small savings on a single product, a user may be required to perform a series of actions including gathering the proper coupon (e.g., clip it from a coupon book or news circular), matching the coupon to the appropriate product or products at a retail location (e.g., a supermarket), and redeeming the coupon according to the appropriate redemption instructions (e.g., at the point-of-sale (“POS”)). Such a process is time consuming and tedious, which significantly undermines the provider's efforts to generate user interest in long term participation in such coupon and rebate based incentive programs.
Also, users generally desire a large number of choices with regard to the products and services that they are able to purchase. However, as the number of products and services offered increases, it also becomes increasingly difficult for the user to identify specific products and services that the user may be interested in. Because most coupon and rebate based incentive programs do not provide an effective method of allowing the user to search or otherwise identify savings on products that the user may be interested in, it has been difficult to generate user loyalty through such incentive programs.
Additionally, coupon and rebate based incentive programs typically require redemption at a POS or via mail (e.g., mail-in rebates, etc.). In a typical POS transaction, redemption of coupons and rebates are handled separately from actual purchasing activities (e.g., coupons are scanned in addition to product bar codes in order to calculate savings before the user tenders payment of the balance). Consequently, coupon redemption adds an additional step to the purchasing process, which may sometimes significantly increase processing time and introduce errors into the transaction.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a loyalty and rewards system for supporting a user incentive program that allows a user to systematically search, identify, store, and redeem coupons and rebates associated with products from a large number of providers and manufactures. Additionally, because a significant number of purchases are made with debit or credit cards today, it is therefore also an object of the present invention to implement the user incentive program using smart card technology, which integrates the activities associated with the user incentive program (e.g., coupon collection, storage, redemption, etc.), with existing payment methods (e.g., charging a credit card, etc.). Thus, the present invention allows the user to obtain savings and otherwise participate in one or more user incentive programs without adding time consuming and tedious processing that is normally associated with coupon and rebate programs.